The Grave Maurice (41 page)

My God, he had been, hadn't he? “I was remembering my old fiancée, Susan.”

“You don't want to go wasting your time on old girl-friends. Here drink this”—she handed him a mug of tea—“and eat this.” She handed him a plate of fried eggs, sausages and a wedge of fried bread.

Carole-anne sat down across from him in his armchair and smiled.

Jury noticed that she had asked why he was laughing, but would not ask why he was crying. He knew she would love to hear why, but she would not ask.

Jury lifted his plate as if to toast her and said, “Shades of Little Chef.”

“H
e died just like his dad,” said Nell, seated limply in one of Vernon Rice's metal-spoked, punishing-looking chairs as if she needed some hard and abrasive punishment because she hadn't stopped Maurice from trying to jump those walls.

Vernon handed Nell a glass of mineral water and Jury a whiskey. He said to her, “Does that—” and he stopped.

Nell's look implored him to say the right thing. “What?”

As if there were any right thing,
thought Jury.

They all looked down into their glasses. No one spoke. After a full minute of silence, Jury asked Nell what he supposed Vernon had meant to ask but drew back from because it sounded insensitive. “Does that bother you? The similarity? Maurice certainly knew he shouldn't have been jumping walls after dark. Not only putting himself in danger, but also the horse.”

“Of course it bothers me. And Maurice knew better than to do what he did. He'd been really . . . morose, I guess you'd say. He wasn't that way two years ago. The jumping had to do with his dad. He needed him. I mean, with his mum gone, he had no one except Granddad and me.”

“He was lucky there,” said Jury.

Vernon had been walking round the room, stopping by the window to stare out over the gray City, looking at noon as if it were dusk, with its misty rain and blue-shadowed streets. He said, “I remember Maurice's unhappiness after Danny's death. But he got over that, or at least as ‘over' as one can get when a parent dies. This was something more—I'm not putting this right.”

Jury said, “Yes, you are. Isn't he, Nell?”

She set her glass on the rug and raised her eyes to give Jury a questioning look. “This was something more?” She rubbed her hands on her blue-jeaned knees. “We used to be really close; we were so much in the same position. Once, we could talk for hours. But in the little time I've been back, Maurice seemed to have changed so much.”

“Did he ask you what had happened during those twenty months?”

She shook her head. “He didn't seem to want to know. I mean Dad and Granddad just pestered me for details. They wanted to know everything. But Maurice didn't want to know. I thought it must have been just too painful for him.”

“I'm sure it was.”

“I hadn't changed about Maurice.”

“No, I'm sure you hadn't,” said Jury.

“But you seem to think I was the cause.”

“I think Maurice felt responsible for what happened.”

“For
me?
That's ridiculous. He wasn't, not at all. Why would he feel that way?”

Jury leaned toward her. “Nell, how did this fellow who took you know you were out there in Aqueduct's stall?”

She looked from Jury to Vernon, as if she'd been set a puzzle to work out. “He didn't. It was just coincidence I was there.”

Jury shook his head. “He came for you, Nell.”

“
What
—? Why would anyone want me?”

Vernon nearly choked.

Someone had wanted her badly to go to her room a dozen times. But the sex, in and of itself, Jury intuited, wasn't the reason. “How did he know that you'd be there?” He paused. She said nothing. “Didn't you say that the horse didn't seem sick to you? Still, you stayed.”

“Yes, well, but just in case. And Maurice is very good at reading signs of illness in the horses . . .” Her voice trailed off. She shook her head. “No. I know what you're saying. Absolutely no. Maurice could never have done such a thing. Never. Nothing, no one on earth could make Maurice do that. No one.”

“I don't think Maurice knew what was actually going to happen. But I do think he did it. Wouldn't it explain his attitude toward you now?” Jury didn't add,
Wouldn't it further explain his accident?

But Nell simply couldn't bring herself to believe that Maurice really had done what Jury said. She said again, “Nothing could have made him do it.” She flashed Jury a challenging look. “What? Who?”

He turned away from that look, shaking his head. “I don't know,” he said.

B
ut he did know. Late the next morning, Jury was back in a taxi, driving from Cardiff to Sara Hunt's house. This time, he hadn't given her any warning.

When she opened the door and saw him, she froze. “I didn't know you were coming.” She recovered quickly and smiled.

“No. I thought I'd surprise you. Nice little car, there.” He looked at the red Aston-Martin parked in what he imagined could be called the backstretch of the circular driveway. “Yours?”

“My char's, if you can believe it. They live high on the hog these days. Come on in.”

He tossed his coat over the banister and followed her into the living room.

“What can I get you? Coffee? A drink?”

“Not a thing. I'm not stopping here for long.”

She sat down in the wing chair—perched in it, really, sitting nearly on the edge. She looked like a child. He wondered what he had seen in her that attracted him sexually, that had made him feel such a yearning, and wasn't happy with himself finding that longing abated.

“Is something wrong? You sound rather
official
—” Her smile was uncertain.

Jury merely watched her, looking directly at her for a few beats, and she did what he expected—looked away. And then back. He was still looking at her.

“For heaven's sake, Richard, why are you looking at me that way?” Small movements of her hands—brushing hair back from her face, fingering the gold chain around her neck, turning a ring with her thumb—showed how nervous she was.

Jury sat with one ankle hooked over his knee. “You're pretty. Isn't that enough reason?”

She didn't know how to take this, smiled and stopped smiling.

There was the sound of something heavy falling in the rooms above them. “Oh, God! I'll have to see what she's doing up there. I could kill her sometimes.”

Jury smiled. “I'll wait.”

As she left, her laugh—not a laugh at all—cut off abruptly.

Jury leaned his head back against the chair, looking up as if above him were a glass ceiling and he could see as well as hear. The voices were indistinguishable, words melting in a pool. There wasn't, fortunately, any killing going on.

Then Sara came down the stairs. “Not too much damage—”

“Speaking of damage—of course you would only have seen him at the races, if you saw him at all, but Maurice Ryder—Dan Ryder's son?—is dead.”

“Oh, my God.” She clamped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were barely visible above the hand and behind the tears. She rose uncertainly and walked to the window, clearly to get herself under control.

Jury said, “So you
did
know him? I'm surprised, given your fleeting association with the Ryders.” She had turned as he said this and he gave her a disingenuous, puzzled frown. “You did?”

It took her a moment to clear her throat. “Not well, no.”

Jury's faux frown grew even more puzzled. “That's quite a reaction you had for someone you didn't know well.”

She still had not sat down, which was fine with Jury. He was quite comfortable. He rubbed the dark blue and gray diamond pattern of his silk sock, pulling it up a little, giving her a little room. But the brief hiatus wasn't going to do her much good.

He said, “There's something I'd like you to look at.” He pulled from an inside pocket the snapshot Nell had taken from Valerie Hobbs's office, held it out, his arm extended toward her. Thus she had to come nearer, and she did.

“Do you know her?”

Sara let out a breath, relief, probably, for here was safe ground.

“No, I don't. Why?”

“You're sure?”

Her glance flicked from the picture to Jury. “Yes, I'm sure.” Again she asked why.

“Only because”—he pulled out the enlarged snapshot of Dan Ryder—“both of you seem to know him.”

She took a step back. “How—where—did you get that?”

“Dishonestly, but that's hardly the point—”

“It's
my
point.” Quickly, she moved to the writing table and turned the tasseled key in the little drawer under the top. After her eyes and fingers did a brief search, she turned to him.

He could almost smell the fury mixed with fear. She seemed unable to frame whatever invective she was looking for and settled for the rather Victorian “How dare you?” She paused. “You have to have a search warrant, don't you, to do that?” She slapped the drawer shut.

“I'm not here in any official capacity. Just a nosy customer, a common sneak thief.” Jury knew that wouldn't get him off the hook if she actually wanted to take it further, but she was going to have enough things on her mind to give her attention to a possible “investigative irregularity.” “The thing is, you clearly knew Dan Ryder a bit better than you allowed.
Much
better, it appears. Why so secretive, Sara? So far, love isn't known to be a criminal offense. Why did you lie?” Now he watched her as she gave herself time to think of something plausible.

“Because I fancied you and didn't want you to think—”

“That you fancied someone else. Sara”—he couldn't help himself; he laughed—“I've got to credit you with originality. That's the first time, the very
first
I've ever heard that as a reason for lying—”

“I didn't lie—”

“—but I'm not really convinced I'm not a total mug and the love of your life. So why is there such a secret? Dan Ryder was hardly a Trappist monk. We know his reputation with women.” Jury held up the snapshot of Valerie Hobbs. “For instance—”

“I told you I've never seen her.” Suspicion incensed her. “What's your interest in her?”

“She doesn't know him, either. So she says. And then there's always this one—” He held up a morgue shot of Simone Ryder.

She looked at him so coldly Jury felt a chill in the air. “I've never seen her in my life.”

Jury turned the picture and looked at it again himself. “You're sure of that?”

“Damn it. I don't have to listen to this.”

“Yes, you do, so sit down.”

“This is why you wound up in my bed.”

Jury shook his head. “No. That's completely separate. Completely.” Now he wondered if it was, and felt slightly ashamed. “Don't try to play the lover deceived; don't play the victim. I wasn't trying to get anything out of you. Sit down.”

She had been pacing, fidgeting with objects she passed—the tasseled shade of a lamp, a glass paperweight—but at the tone of his voice, she reseated herself.

He arranged the three pictures on the coffee table like cards in a poker hand. “Interesting story. Just sit there and I'll tell it to you—”

“I expect I'd tell it better, mate.”

The voice came from behind Jury. He turned.

“Hello, Danny.” Almost ingratiatingly, Jury smiled.

“Christ, but you've been one busy little copper.”

Jury liked the “little” copper. He bet Danny was always throwing that word and others like it around to describe other men.

He was a small man—height, girth, bones, hands, feet—yet still big for a jockey, which must have been a source of continuing pleasure for him. Jury didn't know what he planned to do with the gun, beyond pointing it at Jury, but he was perfectly set to let this film unreel.

“Danny!” said Sara. “What are you—?”

“Come on, girl. Sit.”

Not a wise thing to do, perhaps, but Jury stuck his feet up on the coffee table and leaned back, miming comfort. He only hoped his soigné attitude didn't make him foolhardy, which was how he felt.

Danny Ryder laughed. “Christ, man, but you do take life and death neat, no chasers.”

Jury waved his arm, inviting Danny to join them.

Absurdly, Danny did. He sat on the sofa next to Sara.

“First,” said Jury, “I have no doubt you'd use that gun. It's a .22. Which is interesting.” Danny was regarding it as if he'd never seen it before. “But it's a strange thing about almost dying, as I recently almost did—you use up a lot of your scare quotient. It takes a hell of a lot to scare me now.”

Danny laughed.

“You ought to be able to relate to that. You're always putting your life on the line, Dan. I imagine it's part of the thrill, the rush you get when you're up on one of those great horses of your father's.”

“Get us a beer, love,” said Danny to Sara. “Us” meaning “me.”

Sara, who looked taut as piano wire, rose and went toward the kitchen.

Danny leaned over the coffee table. “Now, here's an interesting photo collection.”

“Yeah. Sara's dying to know who the brown-haired one is.”

“And where'd you get her picture?”

“Valerie Hobbs's? From her photo collection.”